Literally tell me how this is wrong.
Just like a Python script seems magical to the layman.
Loopholes don't exist because Law is too complex. They either exist on purpose or because lawyers will hack the letter of the law in their favor, not unlike many of us on HN would do.
Your claims are just shallow, I'm sorry to say – you need to understand Finance or Law before you can really have a meaningful opinion on it. Just like Linus doesn't care what a script kiddy thinks of his kernel. Sorry if that seems blunt but hope the analogies show the merit in this reply.
In other replies to this thread I have provided my inductive reasoning for why I believe finance is overly complex. To your reply I will provide some counter examples since you cite yourself as an example.
If finance wasn’t over complex why does this investigative report require career forensic accountants to dig out the details?
If finance reports weren’t over complex why was GE able to hide fraud by simply changing the formatting of their reports once in a while?
I’m willing to bet even a finance expert can’t uncover fraud by looking at GE finance statements. They are so complex you need a forensics expert to find it.
Another example of over complexity is loop holes in tax law. Loop holes aren’t created intentionally. They are created unintentionally. How? Because complexity of tax law makes the creator of a loop hole unaware that he is creating it. The law maker creates a law to improve the system, the loop hole is created as an unintended consequence hidden by over complexity/
My claims are shallow this much is true. But your claim is equally shallow. Analogies and examples are shallow. If we want to move forward one of us needs a quantifiable measure of over complexity and statistical analysis of this on finance. If neither of us can offer this then we are at a draw.
Because this particular company has chosen to produce incredibly complicated financial statements due to a variety of reasons. It's the exception to the rule.
Just like the Underhanded C contest[0] doesn't describe the entire universe of computer programming
And Tax Law doesn't represent the entirety of the body of Law that governs a country. Law is an entirely different beast because there isn't a BDFL who can refactor the existing code into something meaningful, and there is no unit testing to ensure the any refactored law will work as intended won't have terrible adverse effects. Legislating is a social experiment, and if you've ever been part of a group project you know how hard that can be with a handful of people, let alone hundreds of representatives or millions of voters.
My claims are just as deep as they need to be to discredit yours. I'm happy to engage in a deeper debate, but you haven't invited us to one yet. Right now this is just noise, particularly considering that you choose to take the stance of someone who thinks they're right even though they admit to being a layman, instead of asking genuine questions driven by intellectual curiosity and the desire to become better informed.
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The fact that a career with the title "forensic accountant" exists to decode said financial statements mean that there are many many exceptions to the rule. So many exceptions must exist to support such an occupation that it is viable to say finance is overly complex.
>And Tax Law doesn't represent the entirety of the body of Law that governs a country. Law is an entirely different beast because there isn't a BDFL who can refactor the existing code into something meaningful, and there is no unit testing to ensure the any refactored law will work as intended won't have terrible adverse effects. Legislating is a social experiment, and if you've ever been part of a group project you know how hard that can be with a handful of people, let alone hundreds of representatives or millions of voters.
Tax law doesn't represent the entire body of law but it does represent a significant portion of finance. If that significant portion of finance is as you say a "social experiment" that results in over complexity then tax law is a good example of a part of finance that is overly complex.
>Just like the Underhanded C contest[0] doesn't describe the entire universe of computer programming
To describe a universe of things you need quantified statistical evidence about the complexity of the system as a whole. I have offered none. You have also offered none. The reason is no such evidence exists. This argument makes no movement until someone can offer such evidence as no one can make a definitive statement about finance until such statistics and quantifiable measurements are offered.
>My claims are just as deep as they need to be to discredit yours. I'm happy to engage in a deeper debate, but you haven't invited us to one yet. Right now this is just noise, particularly considering that you choose to take the stance of someone who thinks they're right even though they admit to being a layman, instead of asking genuine questions driven by intellectual curiosity and the desire to become better informed.
Your claims offer nothing. You didn't even respond to all my points. This last paragraph is subtle underhanded insult that comments on me personally rather than the argument at hand.
I have said this to absolutely no one else in this thread except you. Due to the underhanded subtle personal insults you have stated against me in your last paragraph... you are not invited to engage in deeper debate with me, you are not invited to respond to me and you are encouraged to leave. I will not respond to you anymore. You will note that I have done this to No one else in this thread except you.
> The fact that a career with the title "forensic accountant" exists to decode said financial statements mean that there are many many exceptions to the rule. So many exceptions must exist to support such an occupation that it is viable to say finance is overly complex.
False. It does not follow from the existence of "forensic accountants" that finance is _overly_ complex. At best, you can argue there are certain situations that require a closer look. Forensic Accountants are hired when the words "bankruptcy" or "fraud" are in play. For nearly all other purposes, any Finance-savvy professional can read a public company's SEC disclosures like their 10-Q or 10-Ks. The double-entry accounting system has existed since the year 1340, at least, if not earlier[0]
> > And Tax Law doesn't represent the entirety of the body of Law that governs a country. Law is an entirely different beast because there isn't a BDFL who can refactor the existing code into something meaningful, and there is no unit testing to ensure the any refactored law will work as intended won't have terrible adverse effects. Legislating is a social experiment, and if you've ever been part of a group project you know how hard that can be with a handful of people, let alone hundreds of representatives or millions of voters.
> Tax law doesn't represent the entire body of law but it does represent a significant portion of finance.
No, it doesn't. The world of Finance follows GAAP or IFRS standards, not the Tax code. I know the absolute minimum about taxes and still carry on valuing companies on a daily basis. I just now how to account for differences between cash and GAAP taxes.
> If that significant portion of finance is as you say a "social experiment" that results in over complexity then tax law is a good example of a part of finance that is overly complex.
I said legislation is a social experiment, not Finance. Tax Law isn't really a significant "part of of Finance", even if it is complex. GE is not being accused of tax fraud, as far as I know.
> > Just like the Underhanded C contest[0] doesn't describe the entire universe of computer programming
> To describe a universe of things you need quantified statistical evidence about the complexity of the system as a whole. I have offered none. You have also offered none. The reason is no such evidence exists. This argument makes no movement until someone can offer such evidence as no one can make a definitive statement about finance until such statistics and quantifiable measurements are offered.
You're the one making the claim that Finance is overly complex, so the burden of proof is on you, not me.
Incidentally, in making that claim, you're implying there's a "simpler" form of Finance out there, at our reach, that we choose not to employ. That's quite an extraordinary claim, and unless you can point to what exactly is this better form of Finance, I'm inclined to disagree with your hypothesis.
As a matter of fact, if you believe that there are enough actors whose incentive are to make Finance as easy to understand as possible (professors, practitioners, the FASB and IASB members who are in charge of GAAP and IFRS rules, etc) suggests that the current state of Finance is empirical evidence that no better system is known to us. We might discover improvements as we keep investing time and resources, but as of right this second, our reality is the best we could make of it.
> > My claims are just as deep as they need to be to discredit yours. I'm happy to engage in a deeper debate, but you haven't invited us to one yet. Right now this is just noise, particularly considering that you choose to take the stance of someone who thinks they're right even though they admit to being a layman, instead of asking genuine questions driven by intellectual curiosity and the desire to become better informed.
> Your claims offer nothing.
Again, you're the one making claims, so the burden of proof is on you, not me.
> You didn't even respond to all my points.
It's not my job to respond to all your points, particularly when so many of them can be self-answered through some minimal amount of training and research. There are countless resources out there for you to understand Finance and Law. Go read on this stuff before making wild claims and people will have more patient to engage in meaningful conversation.
> This last paragraph is subtle underhanded insult that comments on me personally rather than the argument at hand.
Hardly. That's just how you choose to look at it. I'm giving you actual constructive criticism: (a) you shouldn't make baseless claims on stuff you don't understand and (b) if you admit to not being an expert in something, perhaps consider opting for a more inquisitive rather accusative tone.
> I have said this to absolutely no one else in this thread except you. Due to the underhanded subtle personal insults you have stated against me in your last paragraph... you are not invited to engage in deeper debate with me, you are not invited to respond to me and you are encouraged to leave. I will not respond to you anymore. You will note that I have done this to No one else in this thread except you.
I don't need your invitation to reply, sorry, and you can't "invite me to leave". This is not your house, it's the internet. Also, I wanted to make sure anyone stumbling upon this thread in the future would understand where I'm coming from, so for that purpose alone I wanted to set the record straight. Whether you did any of the above to anyone else is entirely irrelevant.
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0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_syste...
You don't need an invitation to insult me either yet you chose to be highly impolite and insulting. The only record a reader needs to know is that we were engaged in a debate then you suddenly chose to comment on my character and insult me. That is why this debate is over and why I will not respond to any of your points. You can continue to respond despite the fact that your responses are not welcome but the only person you are debating now is yourself.
Many people on this thread highly disagree with me. You are the only one that insulted me and therefore you will be the only one I will not be responding directly too.
It's not an insult to be stupid. Yet we don't go around commenting about peoples intelligence or what they know or don't know do we? Let's be utterly clear, you made a rude and insulting comment about my intelligence. This is not a choice I made on how to perceive your statement, it is a choice YOU made to be rude. You made the additional choice to feign ignorance and play word games like this.
Games are for an audience, to help others decide who is or who isn't a winner in a game of wits. Unfortunately this is the internet, I don't care what another person thinks. If your goal is to communicate with me or convince me about something rather than play a game or perception you have failed completely.
There is ZERO possibility that I will address any of your points. There is zero possibility of any meaningful debate between you and I once you made the choice to be rude.
You're not wrong but you're not making any measurable claims. If you want to understand what complexity is "necessary" you should define necessary a bit better for the purpose of discussion. If necessary means "required for the individual stakeholders in the financial enterprise to achieve their goals" that is a productive starting point. If necessary means "required so people are happy" that is a quagmire.
That being said if finance serves to achieve certain goals I assume necessarily complex means a minimal set of rules and concepts that serve to achieve said goals. Overly complex means a system with way more rules and concepts necessary to achieve a certain goal.
I cannot pinpoint definitively what the overall goal of finance is. Like how it is with everyone else, the notion is vague and complex. I would love to make meAsurable claims but it is hard to do so in a topic that is relatively unmeasurable. What is the measure of complexity in finance? I don’t know. The starting point established here is the best I can come up with. If you can do better by all means do so, I would love to hear more on the science and statistical measurements of complexity in finance.